Ramswant to join Lakers, Dodgers on LA’s championship run
THOUSAND OAKS, CALIF. » Jared Goff texted congratulations to Cody Bellinger and Joc Pederson right after the Los Angeles Dodgers won theWorld Series on Tuesday night.
“Cody actually texted me back and said, ‘It’s your turn now,’” the Los Angeles Rams quarterback recalled Wednesday. “And I said, ‘Absolutely.’”
Los Angeles has become a city of champions again in an incredible October, and the Rams (5-2) want to extend this winning feeling into February. They’ve been discussing it on group chats and in the locker room ever since theLakers raised their trophy two weeks ago, and the anticipation only increased when the Dodgers claimed their own championship.
“It’d be good to make that a little three-peat with us involved there,” Goff said. “It’s definitely something that we’re conscious of, absolutely.”
The Rams were watching and cheering from homewhile the Lakers won the NBA Finals in Florida just 16 days before the Dodgers raised the World Series trophy in Texas, capping an unprecedentedly quick back- to- back coronation for their metropolitan area’s two most beloved teams.
Although the Rams are the city’smost popular franchise in the nation’s most popular sport, they realize they aren’t nestled in LA’s heart as snugly as theDodgers or the Lakers— particularly not after their former owners moved them to Anaheim and St. Louis for 36 years before Stan Kroenke brought themhome in 2016.
But the Rams fully intend to be a cornerstone of the sports establishment in the nation’s second-largest metro area for decades to come. Kroenke’s sparkling new $5 billion SoFi Stadiumin Inglewood is a major step toward that goal — and bringing a third championship in four months to Los Angeles just might cinch it.
Can the Rams do it? They’ve had three straight winning seasons, and they made it to the Super Bowl two years ago. Although they play in the NFL’s toughest division, they’re off to another strong start this fall as they hit the midway point of the regular season Sunday at Miami (3-3).
“We’ve got al l the pieces,” Goff said. “We’re winning games. We are playing well on offense, defense, special teams. We always believe in ourselves, and we’ve been there once with a lot of the same people. We know how to get there. We’ve just got to finish it off, and hopefully this is the year.”
And now there’s the City of Champions factor:
If there is such a thing as civicmomentum, the Rams are riding a big old wave of it alongside the Lakers and the Dodgers.
“You’ve got to be great to be relevant here in this city, and I think that’s awesome,” said coach Sean McVay, a boyhood Atlanta Braves fan who now roots for the Dodgers andmanager Dave Roberts, whom he describes as a role model.
“Really amongst the teamit’s, ‘Hey, let’s continue to produce and do our part to hold up our end of the bargain for the city,’” McVay added. “That pressure is a good thing. I think all 32 teams want to be able to do what the Dodgers just did, so we’re no different. But we’ve got to get to (win) No. 6 first.”
The Rams actually arrived in Los Angeles before either the Lakers or the Dodgers, becoming the West Coast’s firstmajor pro sports franchise way back in 1946.